MOTORCYCLING: CORNERING A MYTH

With the compact engine tucked into its gut inside the bike's triangular frame, this is an old two-wheeler big on power. The mudguards gently bending into each other form a larger triangle, in which the rider sits, part of the engineer's design. Man, the pilot, is right in the middle of this "chapel of iron, aluminium, glass, chrome and rubber". Inspired beauty, Greek proportions, a work of art on two wheels - that is the BMW R32! The vehicle's gentle silhouette and restrained colours are part of the design magic. Mainly black with white pin stripes, and with the BMW emblem as the only splash of colour. The bright metal handlebars and the brown leather saddle gleam like Kimberley diamonds, lighting up where man has his contact with it, possesses and controls it. For me, the R32 ranks as one of the most beautiful machines in the world.

Some of my more intellectual friends would tell me that amazement is at the bottom of all philosophy. But let's face it, amazement is a thoroughly childlike virtue. It requires you to be able to lose yourself in the world; to become at one with objects, bound up with them by amazement, closely followed by sheer joy. I call this the "Ferrari Syndrome"! This is exactly what happens to real bike fans�of both genders afflicted by the "Ferrari Syndrome"! You regain your youth, ogle the vehicle like a small child, and lose yourself in the world of speed and joy. It's interesting that the old cliché of the "child inside the man" emerges, like a chrysalis, as not being too far from the truth after all. Perhaps there's some kind of inherited gene having its effect on us here. Even the smallest of babies stop fretting if picked up and comforted. It's exactly the same with the motorbike enthusiast. As soon as the motor is kicked into life and the unmistakable throb of the engine can be heard, the motorcyclist is happy - really at peace with himself. That's undoubtedly when bikers become "nomads, impervious to time".

Nothing has marked this century more than the discovery of speed as part of life. The Italian Marinetti, founder of the 20th Century revolt against tradition, once lauded speed as follows: "Bicycles and motorbikes are divine. Petrol is divine. The religious ecstasy of the 100 horsepower engine. The joy of changing up from third to fourth. The thrill of turning on the power. Revving up speed as though conducting an orchestra. Every night I pray to my light bulbs, as they embody the greatest speed of all" (quoted by M. Holfelder **). The reputation of motorcyclists and their love of speed is rather less than flattering. The cliché of the aggressive biker wanting to leave everything and everybody behind him may apply in individual cases, but for the majority of riders it is actually rather wide of the mark. For them the road is not a racing track. They get their kicks from the noise of the engine, from just going along, hugging the curves. They savour the fine line between total concentration and letting their thoughts wander, the literally simultaneous ups and down of the landscape, and the speed that compels them to process, in a short space of time, an enormous amount of information.

In contrast to the car, on a motorbike the sensual dimension of speed is always there. No crumple zone at all means not only the higher the speed the greater the danger, but also that there is a direct effect on the way the rider behaves. He has to sway with the curves, he must react and live with the surface of the road, and he must anticipate what is important and do the right thing. On the straight, the strength of the headwind tells you how fast you are really going. Uneven surfaces, changes in direction, weather conditions, here you get to grips with the real world, as part of it, not just observing it as an opponent, alienated from nature and the environment. You seem to grow into the asphalt itself, to become part of this artery of traffic, your speed taking you out of the present and away from the transitory to an endorphin high in your own private world.

Danger does of course go hand in hand with speed. Hellmut Walters' judgement on modern roads brings that point sharply into focus: "Nothing but blood can flow down arterial roads". But the flip side of freedom when motorcycling does not have to be accident, or even death. The risks are known and the dangers ever present. Amongst them are too little experience, the unpredictable behaviour of many car drivers, hazards on the road (patches of oil, potholes, the elements, and sudden obstacles), and technical problems with the bike. You only avoid these in the long term by adopting a clever and reactive style of driving. Only a style of riding that builds in reaction times can help avoid accidents arising from such road hazards. There is just no way that risk to life should be seen as the price for freedom and adventure. Whoever may have coined the saying "no risk, no fun" could not have had any basis for it from the way bikers actually behave.

The brother of Austria's Nobel prize-winner Konrad Lorenz writes of his motorbike in his memoirs of the time before the First World War: "My Laurin & Clement ran as sweet as a bell, which was astonishing considering its construction was really unspeakably primitive. The engine had a surface carburettor, i.e. a simple reservoir from which the petrol vaporised into an induction pipe, where another shutter valve regulated the admission of air. The more it was shaken about, the better the carburation. So to start up on cold mornings those in the know would zoom around on bumpy driveways, until the engine had warmed up. On really cold days you simply poured boiling water into the petrol, to warm it up!" (Quoted by Holfelder **) Today's motorcycles are ingenious hi-tech products that incorporate state of the art technology. The old aura of improvisation and adventure is nevertheless still there. The technical spec of a 750 cc machine today runs, in an MV Augusta for example, like this: 750 cc 4-stroke cycle, four cylinders in a row, bore/piston stroke: 73.8/43.8 mm 16 radially ordered valves, 12.1 compression, six gears, 180kg, 126 horse-power at the crank shaft, maximum torque of 72 Nm/9000: speed - 275 km/h.

Bikers are generally gregarious beings, and enjoy each other's company. Central Europe alone sees hundreds of biker's get-togethers, occasions of all sorts of sizes. The wilder and the more provocative such gatherings the better. Lots of booze is the obvious antidote to their fast life-styles. You can't race all day, so at some point you just land up somewhere, tired and tipsy with your soul mates. Not, however, before you have had a good dose of togetherness and solidarity, swapped the latest on specs, checked the market for second-hand spares, or taken your turn on one of the many attractions of the whole programme.

But then it's back to the loneliness of the road. Away from the campfires of the gatherings, just you and your bike together again. Many bikers are rugged individualists, revelling in the freedom of solitariness. Just to be out there, in unfamiliar territory, often leads to a mood of meditation, of contemplation of life generally, and of introspection. So the real biker gets his adrenaline both from solitude and from the fun of company. This goes a little way towards explaining why there are so many happy bikers.

Contrary to ordinary life, wherein so much energy has to be expended to overcome everyday problems, in motorcycling you find yourself higher up on a different level, away from reality, dominating power and having the feeling of being master of your destiny.

The motorcycle is now what the horse used to be for centuries. Putting it casually, the history of locomotion runs from the horse, past the steam "steed" through to the motorcycle. So it is not surprising that in Sergio Leone's film "Melody of Death" a motorcycle cowboy cleans up the Wild West. But a horse is a living creature, having its own character and life arising from its proximity to man and its capacity to be trained. The motorcycle is however completely subject to man's will, it represents the powerful extension of his imagination, of his longing, of his dreams, of his desires.

This unity of man and machine pushes them on to physical limits, until it cracks suddenly and ends abruptly, sometimes fatally. A motorcycle is not supposed to be a vehicle for delineating physical limits, the myth reveals itself much more as this fine line between external speed and inner peace. There are motorcyclists who do not understand this law and play with their own lives. Often they are young and inexperienced, certainly not always, but they are still stupid. Then there are others, who dance with death. They are all too aware of their own mortality, and take the consequences. For them speed is the focus of life - everything they see is focused by speed. They don't seek out risk, they take it in their stride. The greatest speed demands the greatest inner peace, and he who fails to concentrate on the vanishing point ahead, who does not heed the flickering flames of the world around him, who cannot switch his concentration back and forth from outer to inner, he will never come to understand the soul of biking.

"Don't ride any faster than your Guardian Angel can fly!"
Pastor Faehling in his sermon to 25,000 bikers (quoted by Moritz Holfelder)

"Paradoxically, four wheels are only half the truth"
A biker's response to a question about his attitude to driving cars

"Paradoxically, four wheels are only half the truth"
A biker's response to a question about his attitude to driving cars

"Rubber side down!"
A biker's quip in reply to a question about the correct way to ride motorcycles

** : Literature: Moritz Holfelder, "Das Buch vom Motorrad", published by Husum